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WHAT ABOUT the GIBEONITES?1 William Ford (Wford@Belfastbiblecollege.Com) Tyndale Bulletin 66.2 (2015) 197-216 WHAT ABOUT THE GIBEONITES?1 William Ford ([email protected]) Summary This article considers the story of the Gibeonites in Joshua 9–10 in the context of modern theological questions about the conquest of Canaan. It looks at the portrayal and perspectives of the four main groups in the story (kings, Gibeonites, Israel, and YHWH) and argues that reading Joshua 9 and 10 together shows that the Gibeonites were exempted ̣ from herem (destruction) because of their response to YHWH and Israel. Combined with the story of Rahab, this story suggests that the Canaanites as a whole are not doomed to destruction, but that their response to YHWH makes a difference. 1. Introduction The divinely commanded slaughter of the Canaanites2 in the conquest narratives is arguably one of the most difficult problems for any theological or ethical use of the Old Testament in the modern world. Anyone who attempts to do so is likely to come up against some variant of the question: ‘What about the Canaanites?’3 1 Earlier versions of this article have been read to the Tyndale Old Testament Study Group and the Trinity College Dublin Biblical Studies Research Seminar, and it has been improved by the comments and discussion. I am particularly grateful to my colleague Charlie Hadjiev for reading a draft and giving detailed feedback which has improved my argument in a number of places. 2 In this article ‘Canaanites’ is used in its more general OT sense as shorthand for the inhabitants of the land (e.g. Gen. 12:6) rather than the more specific sense of one of the seven nations (e.g. Deut. 7:1). 3 Wright and Anderson use the question as a title for their discussions in Christopher J. H. Wright, The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 73-108; and Gary A. Anderson ‘What about the Canaanites?’, in Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham, ed. 198 TYNDALE BULLETIN 66.2 (2015) While the destruction of the Canaanites is a problem for many modern (and not so modern) readers, it is not obviously seen as a problem in the text itself. One could say that the problem for the text seems rather to be that the Canaanites are not destroyed, at least not totally. Thus, there are various brief mentions in Joshua 13–21 of groups of Canaanites who survive ‘to this day’.4 However in Joshua 1–12 two exceptions are given considerable prominence: Rahab and her family in chapters 2 and 65 and the Hivites of Gibeon (henceforth the Gibeonites) in chapters 9 and 10. This article will focus on the Gibeonites.7 This is partly because more has been written on Rahab than the Gibeonites, but mainly because they are the more difficult case for two reasons. First they are a larger group than Rahab, as they comprise four towns rather than one family. Thus their exemption from destruction is more striking. Secondly their method of gaining acceptance is more dubious. Although both use deception, Rahab lies for Israel, whereas the Gibeonites lie to Israel. The Gibeonite story comes immediately after the stories of Achan and Ai in chapters 7-8. It begins the block of material in chapters 9–11 and serves as the initial reason for the campaigns summarised therein. Michael Bergman, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea (Oxford: OUP, 2011), 269-91. (See chs. 2, 3, 5, 8, and 10 for further focus on the issue of the conquest). Other recent works that focus on this issue in whole or part include Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2014); Eryl W. Davies, The Immoral Bible: Approaches to Biblical Ethics (London: T & T Clark, 2010); Douglas S. Earl, Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture, JTISup 2 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010); Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 29-70; Eric Seibert, The Violence of Scripture: Overcoming the Old Testament’s Troubling Legacy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 95-114; Heath A. Thomas, Jeremy Evans and Paul Copan, eds., Holy War in the Bible: Christian Morality and an Old Testament Problem (Downers Grove IL: IVP, 2013); Stephen N. Williams, ‘Could God have Commanded the Slaughter of the Canaanites?’, TynBul 63.2 (2012), 161-78. 4 13:13; 15:63; 16:10; cf. 17:12-13. See Gordon Mitchell, Together in the Land: A Reading of the Book of Joshua, JSOTSup 134 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993): 152-84. 5 There is also the comparable, but shorter, story in Judg. 1:22-26. 7 The focus of this article is primarily theological. For wider details on the Gibeonites the most detailed work is Joseph Blenkinsopp, Gibeon and Israel: The Role of Gibeon and the Gibeonites in the Political and Religious History of Early Israel (Cambridge: CUP, 1972). A useful modern discussion of various issues is John Day ‘Gibeon and the Gibeonites in the Old Testament’, in Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. Robert Rezetko, Timothy H. Lim, and W. Brian Aucker (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 113-37. FORD: What about the Gibeonites? 199 Chapter 9 details the deception that the Gibeonites practise upon Israel. Instead of attacking, they pretend that they are from a far off land, and seek a covenant with Israel. Israel is deceived and makes the covenant. Shortly thereafter Israel realises that the Gibeonites live close by and that they have been tricked. They fear to break the covenant nonetheless and spare them, but make them servants for the shrine. In chapter 10 an alliance of southern Canaanite kings attacks Gibeon, who appeals to Israel for help. With the help of YHWH Israel beats the armies, kills the kings and carries out a campaign or raid against the southern Canaanites, putting the kings and remaining ̣ inhabitants to herem.8 In contrast the Gibeonites, themselves ̣ Canaanites, are not put to herem, but rather survive in association with Israel. If one question raised by Joshua 1–12 is ‘What about the Canaanites?’ in the sense of ‘Why were the Canaanites wiped out?’, then one question raised by Joshua 9–10 is ‘What about the Gibeonites?’ in the sense of ‘Why weren’t the Gibeonites wiped out?’9 This article will draw out some theological issues from the Gibeonite question, and see how they interact with the larger Canaanite one. There have been a number of larger works on or including Joshua which have considered the theological issue of the Gibeonites. In the first volume of his literary study of the Deuteronomistic History, Moses and the Deuteronomist, Polzin argues that the dominant voice of Joshua is what he describes as ‘critical traditionalism’ rather than ‘authoritative dogmatism’ (the two voices that he perceives in the Deuteronomistic History).10 He sees the stories of Rahab and the Gibeonites as a meditation upon the status of Israel in relationship to YHWH as set out in Deuteronomy. In the second chapter of his Into the Hands of the Living God, Eslinger looks at the ironic statements about Rahab and the Gibeonites. In contrast to Polzin he argues that the narrator is using these stories to ̣ 8 The fullest treatment of herem is found in Philip D. Stern, The Biblical Herem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience, Brown Judaic Studies 211 (Atlanta, GA: ̣ Scholars Press, 1991). I am assuming the most problematic understanding of herem when applied to people, that of destruction. 9 Deut. 7:1 explicitly lists the Hivites (of whom the Gibeonites form a part — Josh. ̣ 9:7; 11:19) as one of the seven nations to be put to herem. 10 Robert Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History Part One: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges (New York: Seabury, 1980), chapter 3, esp. 117-23. 200 TYNDALE BULLETIN 66.2 (2015) attribute to both Joshua and YHWH the failure fully to conquer the Canaanites.11 In Every Promise Fulfilled and his later Joshua commentary, Hawk also analysed the juxtaposition of seemingly contrary reports in Joshua, including the contrast of Rahab, Achan, and the Gibeonites. He argues that these contrasts are a deliberate part of the plot or plots, in order to challenge the reader’s perception of reality and identity, and resonate with the difficulty of applying dogma to life experience.12 Most recently in his Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture, Earl has picked up Hawk’s focus on identity and provided a theological interpretation of Joshua as Christian scripture, seeing it as a foundational myth for Israel, with its primary use being the formation of Israelite identity. Rahab, the Gibeonites, and Achan are liminal figures who challenge an easy or dogmatically exclusive understanding of identity. He argues for a symbolic reading of Joshua, as the way that it would have been read as part of the Old Testament, and a way in which it can be read by Christians today.13 One thing that all of these approaches have in common is the point that the narrative of Joshua is far more complex than an initial reading might suggest. This complexity is clearly present in the story of the Gibeonites, which is not an easy passage to interpret theologically, lacking clear divine or narratorial judgement of the events.14 Instead we have the comments and responses of the four main groups or persons in Joshua 9–10: the Canaanite kings, the Gibeonites, Israel and YHWH himself.
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